PUDUCHERRY: The Union Territory has displayed high buoyancy by registering a 54% growth in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue collection for July 2022, as compared to the same month in 2021.Puducherry grossed Rs 198 crore in its revenue collection in July when compared to Rs 129 crore in the same period during 2022, which is Rs 69 crore more than previous year. This is as per the statistics shared by the Union Ministry of Finance (UFM) vis-a-vis State/UT-wise growth of GST revenues
The UT shares the second position with Ladakh and an (unspecified) Other Territory, in the list of States and the Union Territories. Only Lakshadweep is ahead of them with 69% of growth.In fact, Puducherry’s growth rate is higher that the National-level GST growth rate of 28% for the month. Tamil Nadu registered a growth rate of 34% by settling at Rs 8,449 crore last month as compared to Rs 6,302 crore in the same month the previous year.
This augurs well for Puducherry particularly as July is one of the lean periods for revenue collection for the tourism-dependent revenue. The maximum revenue collections are registered in December and January.Incidentally, this comes when the Puducherry government stated that if the Centre's GST compensation was not continued beyond June 2022, the UT will have a revenue gap of Rs 1,300 crore for the balance period of 2022-23.
The UFM posted its statistics displaying a very high buoyant growth of 35% in GST revenue till July 2022 over the same period last year in the country. According to these statistics, Rs 1,48,995 crore gross GST revenue had been collected in July 2022. This GST revenue collection for July is the second highest ever and 28% higher than the revenues in the same month last year with Rs 1,16,393 crore.. Out of Rs 1,48,995 crore, Rs 25,751 crore was CGST; Rs 32,807 crore was SGST and Rs 79,518 was IGST(including Rs 41,420 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 10,920 crore (including Rs 995 crore collected on import of goods).
Though most States and UTs have registered growth, only three States and UTs registered negative growth: Bihar with -1%, Tripura at -3% and Daman and Diu with -66%. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir recorded static growth. Among the bigger GST revenue grossing States, Karnataka registered 45% growth, West Bengal with 28%, Haryana 27% ,Telangana at 26% Andhra Pradesh at 25%, Gujarat at 20%, Uttar Pradesh 18%, Maharashtra and Rajasthan at 17 %.
As per the statement, for five months in a row now, the monthly GST revenues have been more than Rs 1.4 lakh crore, showing a steady increase every month. “The growth in GST revenue till July 2022 over the same period last year is 35% and displays a very high buoyancy. This is a clear impact of various measures taken by the GST Council in the past to ensure better compliance. Better reporting coupled with economic recovery has had a positive impact on the GST revenues consistently. During June 2022, 7.45 crore e-way bills were generated, which was marginally higher than 7.36 crore in May 2022,” it said.